Description
Near mint 18 carat gold watch
39 mm (without crown)
Fully serviced movement
The Landeron chronograph (stop watch in addition to time keeping) movement functions perfectly with an amplitude of more than 300 and zero beat error. It has the traditional tachymeter scale and a minute counter with marks at 3 minute intervals. The minute register (right subdial) has lines at 3, 6 and 9 minute marks. The reasons for this were the telephone periods used in earlier times. Long distance calls were expensive, so if you overstepped and talked more than 3 minutes, you were charged for 6 etc. This watch is a so-called Chronographe Suisse, an export model series said to have been made especially for tourists visiting Switzerland: “Let them buy a large gold watch with chronograph at an acceptable price” was said to be the motivation for producing these watches. In order not to be confused with well-known brand names, the sellers used a number of different, unidentifiable names on the dial. Here we have a rare case of an “anonymous” model, without a “brand” name. These typically have Landeron caliber 48 or 248 movements, which were the most affordable 17-jewels chronograph movements. The Chronographe Suisse chronographs were sold from the years after World War II until about 1960. This example is very little used and appears quite impressive with beautiful, intact angles and edges on the case, “gold” hands and hour markers, as well as a very well-preserved silvered dial. And, there is no radium lume on the dial either.
